Indian Summer
by hyacinthian
Summary: Wednesday's child is full of woe. [SheppardWeir]


A/N: I wrote this from my limited knowledge of Atlantis. If any canon completely renders impossible anything I've written here, just mentally slap an AU on this baby.

* * *

It was summer in Virginia and the rest of the world. The normal ambience and semi-quiet of Arlingon was shattered by the pained cries of a woman. The piercing ringing of an ambulance siren further cut into the silence. The incredibly warm temperature and late hour made the experience utterly unbearable for the doctors and nurses on call. They simply wanted to deliver the baby and go back to sleep on their stuffy, uncomfortable cots and lounge sofas. At 3:13 a.m. as Wednesday barely began to peak, a boy was born. When the doctors gazed into the infant's large, shining eyes, they forgot their grievances and gently handed the baby to his mother. The ability of those eyes to captivate souls would be the Sheppard family's eventual undoing. 

In the bleak winter of Everett, Massachusetts, the plaintive cries of a female infant awoke the sleeping adults. A man rose, attempting not to disturb his grumbling, barely awake wife any further. Their bundle of joy, received on a Wednesday, wailing on an early Tuesday morning. He shuffled over to the next room, deciding to check on the child. He was greeted with a bright smile. He picked her up, cradling her in his arms, and gently began to rock her, heading down to the kitchen for a bottle. She began to coo within a few minutes. "All little Lizzie needed was her daddy, right?" She began to gaze at the refrigerator. Her birth certificate lay just above a framed photograph of her parents and her, smiling happily at the camera. How was she to suspect that the image would only be a faint recollection?

At the age of four, his father had begun to take up drinking as a recreational hobby. And his father was _not _a nice drunk. When his father was drunk, he threw tantrums, tossed pricey china against cheap walls, and relished the sound of it breaking, relished the sound of his mother's tears. Sometimes, he just thinks his father liked the scent of fear that his mother inevitably wore when he was inebriated. He had spent all day fashioning a gift for his father. All his father did was break it. As a child, he had cast those large pools of emotion onto him, trying to convey the sense of hurt he felt. In one swift movement, the back of his father's hand flew to collide harshly against his cheek. He began to wail as his father collapsed in a drunken stupor.

When she was seven, she felt a shift in the relationship she had with her mother. When she was younger, she felt her mother had actually cared, had taken interest. She seemed to be more lackluster, be listless more often, the martini glass becoming a faithful companion. Even without the alcohol, her mother had become more harsh. When she had forgotten to leave some aspirin and a glass of water for her mother one Saturday morning, her mother had withheld all three meals of the day from her. She had never realized need until that day.

When he was ten, his father began to introduce objects into the equation. He had begun to see if his son was tough enough to resist him. He remembered the countless glass shards he had threatened to streak across his fragile skin. He remembered the look of fear her mother had given him, remembered the wracking sobs that had seemed to devour her whole. One night, when he was really drunk, he tried to attack him with part of the glass bottle. He still has the scar on his forearm.

At the age of twelve, her mother had begun to develop more insane, harsher methods of disciplining her. She felt that she was constantly nagging her and her friends, felt that she was a hassle in their lives. The worst accusation her mother had thrown at her was the idea that she was trying to seduce her own father. The idea repulsed her so violently, she gagged. Her mother interpreted that as a sign of ungratefulness, like she interpreted everything else. She flung her down the stairs of the basement to stay for the remainder of the day. A disgusting cot greeted her in the corner. She still has the bruise on her lower back.

The day he turned fourteen, his teacher had decided to stop at his house to inform his parents of what would surely be an important development. They felt he was incredibly intelligent—that he could even qualify for extremely high-end private schools. She was going to suggest a method of financial aid that could help them out substantially. His father was somewhat sober, amazingly, but he had waved his teacher away pretty much. At the end of the night, he had been on the receiving end of his first punch. His jaw broke. The one thing he remembers is the look of his mother on the way to the hospital.

She attended her first school dance when she was sixteen. She had gotten a decent dress secondhand and decided that she would attend…with or without her mother's permission. It was her first show of defiance. When she returned home, her mother pulled her down to the basement by her hair, and began to rip parts of the dress off of her, beginning to claw at her own daughter's skin. She had the scratch marks on her shoulder for weeks. The scraps of fabric are still in her possession.

When he was twenty, his father told him he would never amount to anything. When she was nineteen, her mother still kept trying to maintain that sneering veneer on, trying to belittle what was left of their relationship. At twenty, she figured out that all her mother needed was someone to abuse. At the ages of twenty-one, they both decided that staying at home would only be toxic to themselves. Within months, they left for the only safe haven they felt was left. She left for college. He left for the military.

Several decades later, he was introduced to who he certainly thought was one of the most beautiful people he had ever seen before. She flashed him a brilliant smile as his warm eyes washed over her, trying to assess whether or not she was genuine. She decided to offer him a position on her expedition. For the first time in his life, he felt wanted, and though Antarctica was a comfortable place for him, it didn't fit him. And neither did any of the other continents. He shrugged it off and decided to go. It wasn't as if his family would mind.

Several years after that, she found herself standing in the center of a giant hexagon. Her smile quavered a bit with nervousness. Carson headed the proceedings. She could have laughed. She smiled, and received every cultural tradition the motley group of citizens at Atlantis had to offer. The ring was slightly cool when he placed it on her finger. When she danced with him, she could feel the tulle and the chiffon gliding gently with them. At two a.m., she dug through her endless belongings, grabbed the pink scraps of fabric, and burned them.

On an unbelievably tranquil day at Atlantis, she opens her eyes, blinking unsteadily. There are at least six or seven people crowding around her, odd smiles pasted on their faces. She reaches out with one hand, blinking at the oddness of the orange light streaming through the only window in the room. A woman laughs softly. She reaches up and begins to play with the soft brown curls. A tired chuckling greets her, and she cries out suddenly when she feels herself being moved. When her green eyes focus again on the large, bright eyes of someone else, she quiets. "Wednesday's child, huh?" She smiles as she finds herself gently falling to sleep.


End file.
